Apple’s Future Looks Pretty Amazing…

by Da'Von B.

To begin, yesterdays announcements from Apple were expected, new hardware was NOT expected much to everyone’s hopes and desires, and the software announcements won’t make anyone run out and purchase products immediately let’s just say that long-term Apple is setting itself up for success. But there’s a trend that not too many people are catching onto over at the company in Cupertino, and it begins with OS X Lion its cost and how it’ll be obtained. An extremely quick history lesson previous OS X updates would run around $129 and would have to be purchased in disc form from Apple Stores or online. That doesn’t appear to be the case anymore. In order to obtain OS X Lion you’d have to go to the Mac App Store and download the upgraded OS and the cost is $30, now there’s something significant in these new developments. First, Apple is suggesting that optical media is something they want to slowly walk away from and just isn’t necessary in terms of upgrading your Mac OS, second, they’re suggesting that the cost to provide substantial advancements in the OS isn’t a factor which is why it’ll be offered for such a minimal rate (can you imagine Microsoft offering Windows 8 at $30? Take a look at how many versions of Windows 7 is offered and at what price here). If you run a small business OS X Lion Server will run you $50. All in all Apple is moving users away from having to purchase and insert physical media moving things over to a single step process. Add in iCloud and iOS 5 the rumors of Apple in talks with studios to have video in the cloud and the rumors of legacy updates to its MacBook line-up in 2012 and you’ll notice a future at Apple without the superdrive in its mobile products relying on their own cloud services where your boot-up disc will be on a simple USB key. Everything that’s recently been shown is really just the beginning, remember this is the company that dropped the floppy drive and released a MacBook Air sans Superdrive, with the software shown Apple’s hardware could have a drastic new look across the board that may take some people time to warm up to (as they did with the MacBook Air) but suddenly purchase in droves.